Tag Archives: new adult

The Interview: Jessica Calla

KB Full Disclosure: I first ran across Jessica Calla by chance. She had entered a contest I was judging. I don’t see names or anything, but I fell in love with She Laughs in Pink, and it stuck with me. I was happy to see it in print (or digital.)

KB: Welcome to Kissing Bandits Blog! Tell us a little bit about yourself!

JC: Thank you for having me!

I’m Jess. I’m born, raised, and currently live in New Jersey. I spend my days working as a lawyer and my nights writing romance and women’s fiction. I have two sons, a husband, a dog, and a beat up old minivan without air conditioning. My favorite famous people are The Rock, Beyonce, and Eddie Vedder. If the three of them were to read this interview, I think The Rock would be the most likely to buy me a new car with working air. I’m addicted to caffeine and sugar, hugs from my kids, Twitter (@jess_calla!), and romance novels.

KB: Tell us a little bit about your most recent release.

JC: My most recent release SHE LAUGHS IN PINK, is the first in the Sheridan Hall new adult romance series. It centers around freshmen Juliet and Chase, who meet in the dorm on move-in day at the fictional New Jersey University. Juliet followed her best friend and crush from home, Ben, to NJU in an attempt to make him love her. But then she meets Ben’s roommate Chase, an artist and city boy on scholarship, and quickly figures out that he’s kind of awesome, too. Lots of other stuff happens–friendships are made, people are lost, past issues re-emerge, love (and sex) happens. I think SHE LAUGHS… has all of the elements that make new adult such a great genre, and I’m really proud of it.

KB: Tell us about your first kiss.

JC: My first kiss happened in sixth grade at a sleepover. Here’s the scenario: One of my friends had a finished basement and really liberal parents who let the boys come hang out until midnight. While us girls had them there, we organized a game of “spin the bottle.” Except we, being twelve-year-olds, had no bottle. We used a toothbrush holder instead and played “spin the toothbrush.” My first spin landed on Mark. I was fine with Mark. He had freckles and cool hair. With all of our friends watching, Mark and I leaned over the toothbrush holder and our lips met in the middle of the circle. His were cold and softer than I’d imagined boys lips could be. I can still remember exactly how they felt. I decided kissing was gross, and didn’t do it again until high school.

KB: Share an excerpt of a first kiss in one of your novels.

JC: This is from THE LOVE SQUARE:

“Are you going to kiss me?” Her tone didn’t reveal whether or not she wanted him to. She was simply asking.

They watched each other until Alex leaned closer to Jenna’s face and traced her lips with his thumb. This time, no plane flew overhead and no memories or fears entered his mind to stop him. He carefully brushed his lips against hers and moved away.

She reacted, wiggling closer to him, and he touched her chin and tilted her face to his. When her lips turned up into a grin, he kissed her full-on, as softly as he could manage.

It took every ounce of self-control to resist moving his hands down her body to pull her closer. But while his body was on high alert, her gentle kiss, like her friendship, calmed him in that way Jenna always did. With her, he had a purpose and someone to share his life. He had a family. He was an adult with dreams and goals instead of the hyped-up, crazy kid he often felt like on the inside.

Soon, the gentle kiss morphed into something more. He couldn’t lose control. Not with Jenna. So he slowed down and tried to imprint the feeling of kissing her, then he pulled away.

“Now this night has been perfect,” he whispered in her ear as he held her close. “Go to sleep, Jen.”

KB: What is something nobody would guess about you?

JC: Something that nobody would guess about me is that I used to be a dancer. From the age of five through college and beyond, I danced ballet, tap, and jazz. In high school I taught preschoolers and worked on the business side of the studio. I spent all of my free time at the dance school. Most of the stories I write have a dancer. In THE LOVE SQUARE, Jenna is a ballroom dancer and teaches a charity class for underprivileged girls. In SHE LAUGHS IN PINK, Juliet is a ballerina. She’s good and loves it, but knows she’ll never go pro. Dancing is a big part of both Jenna and Juliet’s stories, and it’s lifted right from my past experiences and feelings.

Cooper’s math T.A. makes him think about more than equations, but when Kate hauls out a vibrator to finish the job, Cooper realizes he’s not the stud he thought he was. Will she be open to tutoring him in more than math?

Warnings: MF, sex toys, college boy learning to do it right

Word Count: 6354

Excerpt:

Kate trembled in his arms, so he clasped her to him as he rolled to the side. He liked to cuddle after sex. It maintained that feeling of closeness. In this case, he wanted to see Kate again, so cuddling was good currency for swaying her in that direction.

Except she pushed his arms away. He didn’t take it personally. They’d worked up a sweat, and she was probably hot. He gave her space. She reached into a box on her bedside table and drew out a vibrator.

Cooper had seen them before, but he’d never had a lover brandish one. Puzzled that she would bring it out, he watched her drizzle lube over it and turn it on. Then she put it between her legs. She drew it through her folds a few times, pressing it to her clit, and then she slid it inside her pussy.

At this point, he felt slighted. Hadn’t he just rocked her world? “What are you doing?”

“Finishing.” She adjusted the angle and pumped it into her faster. “You didn’t quite get me there.”

I am pleased to announce that I’m co-hosting a party on Facebook with MK Schiller, a fellow Michigan author whose new release, Variables of Love, just came out last week. The party, sponsored by Lady Amber Tours, is September 23 from 5-8 pm. We’re giving away awesome prizes. I’m featuring the Kiss Me Series. Join the party HERE.

Here’s a quick peek at what Variables of Love is about:

Meena Kapoor knows what life has in store for her. She’s in her senior year at Stanford where she’ll graduate summa cum laude, and then she’ll begin her interviews…her marriage interviews. Meena is Indian, and she’s never questioned that she’ll have an arranged marriage like all the generations before her. Not until she meets gorgeous math major Ethan Callahan. Ethan’s sense of humor and free spirit stir feelings in Meena she didn’t know were possible outside of Bollywood movies. It doesn’t hurt that he’s charming and has the uncanny ability to make math sound like poetry, but Meena knows their equation makes no sense in the real world.

Ethan finds himself intrigued by the mysterious, beautiful girl, whose big, brown eyes reflect great pain. His goals are small at first—to make her smile and then to laugh. But he soon wants more, and though Meena is adamant they have no future, he convinces her to share the present. Ethan believes every problem has a solution, but with cultural expectations and family duty among the variables, they will struggle to solve the ultimate equation to find happiness.

MK is giving away a Coach purse and a lovely watch. I’ve made some jewelry. My Lost Goddess Publishing cover artist, Anne Kaye, is a jewelry-making teacher. She actually does many media. In this case, she came over with her bag of tools and taught me to make jewelry. I did 3 necklaces and 2 bracelets, and she corrected all my mistakes. We went for a variety of styles to suit many tastes.

I stuck with teal. If you’ve read the acclaimed series, you’ll recognize the reason for the color–it matches Dylan’s eyes. I’ll also be giving away a free ebook from the Kiss Me series, and MK will be offering one lucky reader a copy of Variables of Love.

The geek in the room next door is Ivy’s dream. Driven together because Clay’s roommate always has a sock on the door, will Ivy finally confess to the crush she’s nurtured for a whole semester?

Warnings: m/f, sexy geek who takes his time to do it right

Word Count: 6526

Excerpt:

The knock came at the expected time. For the past fifteen minutes, Ivy had been listening to the headboard in the next room bang against the wall. On days like this, Clay came over to hang out while his manwhore of a roommate finished getting it on with his flavor of the week. She double-checked her reflection to make sure nothing was out of place. Her straight, wheat-brown hair spilled tamely down her back, and the light dusting of makeup she’d used wasn’t very noticeable, but it brought out the green in her eyes. She put on some lip balm, and then she opened her door.

“Hi, Clay. Come on in. Cooper’s in rare form today. She sounds like an ape.”

Clay huffed out a laugh as he set his backpack on the floor next to the futon sofa. “Or he does. I don’t know why he has to do this when he knows I’m coming back from class.”

Ivy shrugged and sat on the sofa, curling her legs under her bottom. She didn’t mind Cooper’s timing because it meant she got to spend some time with Clay. His tall, thin build and his wire-rimmed glasses landed him on the geek side of the equation, and his flyaway, straw-colored hair kept him there. Though he was on the lean side, Ivy knew he had great bone structure, and he’d fill out in the next couple of years. She could see both his inner beauty and the handsome devil he’d become—though she thought he was pretty hot as-is.

Clay settled next to her, leaning his head along the back of the sofa and closing his eyes.

“Were you up late?”

“Had a physics test today. I aced it.”

Ivy smiled, and Clay opened his eyes as he threw her a similar look. “Congratulations. I’m not looking forward to taking that class.”

“Don’t worry.” He set his hand on top of hers, which gave her a thrill because her hand was on her thigh—and that meant he was touching her thigh. “I’ll help you.”

“It’s all math, isn’t it?”

“Mostly.”

A particularly vicious thump banged the wall behind them. Both Ivy and Clay turned to see if damage had been caused, and the thump came again. This time, a loud moan accompanied it. Ivy knelt up on the sofa and pressed her ear to the wall. The girl made oh-oh-oh noises, and the apelike grunts punctuated her feminine sounds.

Ivy looked to see that Clay had done the same thing, only he faced her. They watched one another as they listened to Cooper entertain some lucky girl. Her sounds came louder and faster, and so did the banging. The crescendo followed rather quickly, and the noises subsided.

Clay sat back on the sofa, shaking his head. “For a second, I wondered if he was going to plow a path through the wall.”

“That sounded amazing.” Ivy sank down next to him, not bothering to hide the wistfulness in her voice that was probably reflected in her eyes.

He snorted. “Not really. She didn’t climax.”

Ivy gaped at him. “How can you say that? You could hear her as well as I could. I think the whole floor heard her.”

Clay shook his head. “She enjoyed it, sure, but she didn’t come.”

Even if she were inclined to argue, Ivy had nothing with which to compare it. “How can you tell? I mean, Cooper obviously can’t.”

“Experience.”

Ivy regarded him, stunned. She would have pegged him for a virgin.

Clay blushed. “I have four older brothers. Our parents were gone for a week in December when we were home for break. One of my brothers had his girlfriend there, and my other brothers listened whenever they got loud and critiqued his performance. When my brother’s girlfriend heard what they were saying, she laughed and told them they were right.”

“What were they right about?”

“That she was enjoying it, but she wasn’t having orgasms. So my brother did a little research—so did I—and for the rest of the week, his girlfriend went around with the biggest smile on her face.” Clay shrugged. “Girls are too nice to tell a guy he needs to do it harder, faster, or move a little to the left.”

Ivy thought about it. “I think if we like a guy enough to sleep with him, we don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

Clay put his hand over hers again. “Guys who really care about a girl want to know the best way to please you. We can’t do that without feedback.”

Ivy studied his hand. She’d been resting hers on the sofa, so he wasn’t touching her leg. “Have you ever made a girl come like that?”

“Not yet.”

Ivy admired his confidence—it wasn’t a matter of if, but when. When she looked up, she found Clay regarding her intensely. “What?”

Looking for a different kind of love story? Kiss Me Goodnight is now available, so you’ve finally found it 🙂 Pick it up so you can get to know Lacey and fall in love with Dylan…or Thomas…or both of them…

To mark this momentous occasion, I’ll be going on a blog tour. It starts next month, so information to follow.

I’m Lacey Hallem, and I have a few secrets. These aren’t them: I wash my hands a lot and lie when I’m stressed. Also, I have horrible taste in men. That’s how I knew Dylan was trouble the first time I saw him…

Life can be challenging for Lacey, especially when things don’t come in sets of six, but she’s smart and funny and able to keep her demons at bay—most of the time. She might have sensed trouble when she set eyes on Dylan, a delectable musician in a vintage T-shirt, but that doesn’t stop her from thinking about him, or spending more and more time in his company.

Enter Thomas. Wealthy, handsome, and completely adoring of Lacey (flaws and all), he’s everything a man should be. So why can’t she convince her heart to fall in love?

Prepare to be swept up in Michele Zurlo’s emotional and compelling story of learning to trust yourself, facing the past, and finding strength you never knew you had.

Here’s a teaser/excerpt to get you going:

After the show, I introduced my best friends Jane and Luma to Dylan’s band. Thank goodness neither of them looked at the men like they were a buffet.

Gavin looked at Dylan and clapped Levi on the back. “We should clear out.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Heads swung and everybody looked at me. It was a little disorienting. I won’t be going on a stage anytime soon. I swallowed. “I mean, this was your first performance. There have to be a hundred women and more than a few men hanging out in there who enjoyed your show and wouldn’t mind meeting you. Mingling will help build your fan base.”

I needed to shut up before somebody asked me if I was a publicist. Knowing me, I would probably answer in the affirmative. I have a major in finance with a minor in business administration. Nothing there speaks to this situation.

Daisy linked her arms through Jane and Luma’s, and the three of them went first. Levi and Gavin followed.

Dylan held the door for me, which led to a hallway behind the stage. He grabbed my hand, holding me back when I would have followed everyone else through the door into the main room.

I cocked my head and gazed up at him.

“You liked the show?”

“Very much. I’d even see it again.” I still think they need some backing vocals. “I especially liked the last song. That’s where you took the name for your band?”

He nodded. “I wrote the song a few years ago.” His eyes clouded over the tiniest bit, a combination of nostalgia and melancholy.

I was about to ask him if he was okay when he tilted his head down. The right moment had finally come. He was going to kiss me. My lips tingled with anticipation. My senses came alive, attuned to every molecule of this moment.

He pulled me against him, holding me so I could feel the hard length of his thighs (yes, thighs, you perv) against mine. But that wasn’t enough. Taking one step forward, he moved my back against the wall. Throwing caution to the wind, I gave in to my urge to run my hands over his chest. I broke my gaze from his, putting off a moment I knew would blow away every kiss I’ve ever had.